


You'll Get There in Time

by Scrawlers



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: Family Feels, Found Family, Gen, Post-Canon, because it's not the primary focus of the fic, it's important but i don't want to put it in the tag, it's just what starts the fic off, little bit of lubricantshipping in the beginning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 18:17:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11258316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrawlers/pseuds/Scrawlers
Summary: Augustine Sycamore took Alan in when Alan was five years old. But although he brought him home, took care of, and raised him, he never formally adopted him. After a talk with Meyer, Augustine thinks that perhaps it's time to change that.





	You'll Get There in Time

**Author's Note:**

> I would say this takes place quite a few months post-canon—almost a year, maybe ten months? For some reason I have the impression that canon ended near the beginning of summer (and therefore within a month of Alan’s sixteenth birthday), and so Alan is sixteen (nearing seventeen) here. This also works off my usual canon divergence of “Alan stayed in Lumiose at the end of canon and no one can tell me otherwise”, as well as the premise of “Sycamore and Meyer started dating after XY068″, so please be aware of both of those things moving forward, thank you. (Oh, and as always, Gabrielle is Sycamore's garchomp, and Lizardon is Alan's charizard.)

Not for the first time, Augustine had no idea what movie he and Meyer were watching. It was late; the sun had set hours ago, Clemont and Bonnie were home and (in Bonnie’s case at the least) likely getting ready for bed, and the last Augustine was aware Alan had gone out for a night flight on Lizardon. Augustine and Meyer were curled up on the couch in Augustine’s living room, Meyer relaxing back against the cushions with his arm around Augustine’s shoulders, Augustine himself leaning into Meyer’s embrace. They found this movie while flipping through the channels; it had already started, and since this channel was one that didn’t interrupt its movies with commercial breaks and loud, intrusive announcements about what movie they were returning to when the break ended, Augustine wasn’t sure which one it was. It didn’t particularly matter; the movie was entertaining enough, even if it was several decades old and riddled with cheese because of it. It was fine enough for a relaxing night in, and Augustine smiled a little as he shifted his position just enough so that he could settle back against Meyer a bit more comfortably, both of his legs brought up and stretched across the sofa cushions.

And that was when Meyer popped the question.

“I meant to ask—you didn’t ever adopt Alan, did you?”

“What?”

Augustine sat up, and pulled away from Meyer’s embrace just enough so that he could turn to look at him. With the warm, serene comfort of their evening broken, Meyer plucked the television remote from the armrest beside him, and dialed the volume down enough so that they could talk comfortably.

“You didn’t adopt Alan, did you?” Meyer repeated. “Officially, I mean. On record.”

“I—no,” Augustine said, and he glanced away for only a second before he caught himself and looked back to meet Meyer’s eyes again. “I didn’t. Why do you ask?”

Meyer frowned. He set the remote back on the armrest, stared at it for a moment, and then transferred it to the coffee table instead. When he finally spoke, it was more slowly than usual—more careful, deliberate.

“Things are getting kind of—well, I’d like to think things are getting pretty serious between us. Between you and me. I like you a lot—love you, actually.” His cheeks flushed red, and Augustine couldn’t help but smile as he took Meyer’s hand in his own. Meyer smiled back, and squeezed Augustine’s hand as he ran his thumb along the side of it. “But the thing is, things are getting serious between us and that’s great—but it’s not just us we have to think about. It’s the kids, too.”

“Of course,” Augustine said. It wasn’t as if there had ever been a doubt in his mind that that was the case. He had ended a relationship in the past with someone who had taken issue with Alan being around, and while the thought of that being a problem that he’d have to face again  _now_ boggled his mind, he felt his heart give an unpleasant lurch as he said, “But why are you concerned about Alan? I thought you two were getting along.”

“We are,” Meyer said. “He’s not—it’s not that I’m worried about him disapproving, or causing problems or anything. He and I don’t talk much, but he’s a good kid and I can tell he loves you an awful lot. I think he wants you to be happy, so I can’t see him . . . disapproving of us, or anything like that.”

“For someone who doesn’t talk much with him, you’ve got a good read on him.”

Meyer smiled, though it was fleeting. “The thing is, Gus, is I want him to be happy, too. I don’t know him very well, but like I said, he’s a good kid. I care about him. And I don’t want to hurt him, even by accident.”

Relief made the small seed of stress that had taken root in Augustine’s chest loosen, and he felt the tension leave his shoulders. Meyer _was_ fine with Alan, just as Augustine thought he was—there was nothing to worry about there. He gave Meyer’s hand a grateful squeeze. 

“I appreciate that, especially since if you _didn’t_ care about him, that would cause problems for us,” he said, and Meyer nodded once in perfect understanding. “But I can’t really say I’m following your train of thought here. Alan is fine with us—he won’t be hurt by us being together, so why—?”

“If we—if things continue as they are now—I’ll—we could probably get married, someday, maybe,” Meyer said, and Augustine felt his heart skip in his chest, sudden heat breaking out over his skin. They had never actually discussed marriage before, and while Augustine had certainly thought about it, he wasn’t aware that Meyer had done the same, particularly given his history. “And if we do—or even if we don’t, and things just get more serious—I know that Bonnie at least will want to call you ‘Dad,’ or something like that. And you will be—you would be her stepdad. She’d be thrilled. Clemont would probably warm up to the idea quickly enough, too, though I’m not sure he’d jump on the ‘Dad’ train as easily as Bonnie would.”

“I’d be fine either way,” Augustine said. “I wouldn’t mind if either one of them wanted to call me ‘Dad’.”

“I know,” Meyer said. “But the thing is, I’ve noticed that Alan still calls you ‘Professor.’”

The pieces clicked, then, with such immediacy that Augustine felt a little frustrated with himself for not seeing where the conversation was headed when it first started. 

“You’ve taken care of him for years now,” Meyer went on. “I still remember when he was running around here as a six-year-old in a lab coat. I always just assumed that you had adopted him, but it struck me as strange that he still calls you ‘Professor’ if that was the case. I don’t think there’s any question that he’s your kid, but—have you ever talked about this with him? What’s the story there?”

“No, we never discussed it,” Augustine said. He sat back against the couch cushions and turned his eyes to the television again. The two main characters were arguing on screen; he had no idea what they were talking about anymore. “There was never really a chance to. Or at least, it never came up.” He combed his fingers through his hair. “I never really thought about it—there was never really a reason to. Everything was fine the way it was.”

“I see,” Meyer said. Augustine looked over to see that Meyer had frowned again, his brow pinched in concern. “And what about now? Think you might talk to him about it any time soon?”

“I didn’t think there was really a need to,” Augustine said. “And he’s a bit old to be adopted now, don’t you think?”

“Not necessarily,” Meyer said. “Legally he might be old enough to be on his own, but you could still go through the adoption process to give him an official last name on public record and his License if nothing else. Plus it’d give him legal ties to you and the lab here, so in the event that anything ever happens, you two would have ties to each other in the eyes of the law.”

For all his supposed brilliance, Augustine had to admit that he had never thought of it that way. “That’s true . . .”

“Plus . . .” Meyer hesitated, and only when Augustine looked back at him did he seem to muster the will to carry on. “Like I said, Bonnie will definitely want to see you as her new dad. Clemont will probably see you that way too, even if he doesn’t say as much right off the bat. But from an outsider’s perspective, even if it’s clear that Alan’s your kid, I’m not sure he necessarily knows that if it’s never been said—if you two’ve never discussed it. And I don’t want him to feel uncomfortable or hurt if Clemont and Bonnie do become your stepkids, when he’s been here for eleven years and is still just your assistant.”

“He’s not just—”

“I know that, and you know that, but does he?” Meyer asked, and Augustine closed his mouth. “I don’t want to push either of you to do something you’re not comfortable with as far as adoption goes, if either of you don’t want, but I also don’t want to run the risk of making Alan feel like he’s not—or like he _can’t_ be—part of this family, too.”

Warmth spread through Augustine, from his chest down to his fingertips, and he squeezed Meyer’s hand again. He was at a loss for how to convey exactly what he was feeling (thought part of him was tempted to kiss Meyer, right then and there), but he settled for a smile as he said, “Thank you. For considering him.”

“No need,” Meyer said, and he smiled back. “Just—think about it, okay? And talk to him, maybe sometime soon. And let me know how it goes, if or when you do.”

Augustine nodded, and looked down at their clasped hands as he said, “Yes. I will.”

He certainly would.

**\- - -**

All things considered, it should have been an easy talk. Augustine didn’t know, then, why it felt so _hard_.

He had planned, originally, to have the talk with Alan at breakfast the next morning. They usually ate breakfast together after they fed the pokémon at the lab (which itself usually took place after Alan and Lizardon had gone for a morning flight at daybreak, provided Alan was up early enough), and it was the perfect time for casual conversation. But although that had been Augustine’s plan, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. They had eaten quietly, and though the silence had been mostly comfortable (though Alan, at least, hadn’t seemed to pick up on anything out of the ordinary), every time Augustine thought about bringing the subject of adoption up, he felt his throat catch, and found it suddenly difficult to swallow his cereal. Near the end of breakfast, Alan had actually asked him if he was all right, evidently thinking Augustine was sick. Augustine had assured him that everything was fine—and it was—but he still hadn’t been able to bring up the adoption talk. Next time, then, he reasoned. He would find a better time to bring it up.

But as the days went on, he wasn’t entirely sure when that ‘better time’ was. He had thought that perhaps they could talk about it while completing their work throughout the morning, but then he reasoned that no, that was impossible—they were working, and their research was important. They had to focus on that. He thought about perhaps bringing it up before Alan left to train (he had finally reached the decision to take the Champion challenge, and was set to take it the following month; he and his pokémon were undergoing multiple training sessions a day as a result to prepare), but Alan—well, he needed to concentrate, didn’t he? Training was important, and it required focus. Augustine didn’t need to break that focus by springing a conversation like that on him out of the blue. It wouldn’t be right.

So then, maybe dinner was a better time, but Augustine was met by the same inability to spit the words out during dinner that evening as he had been during breakfast in the morning. They could have perhaps talked before bed, after Alan returned from his evening flight on Lizardon, but Alan was only up for a little while before he went to bed for the evening, and they had decided to continue watching a new show they had discovered on NetTix. It was something they hadn’t seen before, so it really wasn’t a show that could be interrupted by talking. Alan didn’t like it when people talked through movies or shows, anyway, and Augustine couldn’t say that he blamed him. It was rude.

And so it continued for at least a week after. The problem, Augustine thought, was that they more or less had a routine. Although Alan’s sleep schedule could still be a bit unpredictable at times, he still kept more or less to the same routine each day, pushing himself even if he was exhausted from staying up the night before (something Augustine chastised him for, but that never seemed to stick). He took Lizardon out for regular flights, he underwent rigorous training sessions with his pokémon three times a day for several hours at a time, and he tended to work around the lab. There were breaks here or there, and he wasn’t averse to changing tracks if something came up, but he had a routine, and it was a busy one. Alan’s days were not idle, and neither were Augustine’s, and that made it impossible to find a time to talk.

“I don’t really know what I’m going to do,” Augustine mused to Gabrielle on the eighth day, as they sat just outside the door to the garden. He was massaging some dry shampoo onto one of the combee while Gabrielle sat nearby, spinning a flower crown a bellossom they had recently taken in had made for her around one of her wrists. “There isn’t really a good time to talk about this. I’m not sure I’ll get a chance to talk to him.”

“Gar?”

“Alan.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Augustine saw Gabrielle stop twirling the flower crown, and when he looked up, he saw that she was staring at him with a perplexed look. Wordlessly, she lifted the arm still bearing the flower crown to point across the yard, and he followed her gesture to see that she was pointing at Alan, who was sitting on the far side of the yard with Lizardon and a lounge of baby salandit. Lizardon was holding a box of poképuffs, and as Augustine watched, Alan plucked one of the poképuffs from the box and broke off pieces that were small enough so that the salandit wouldn’t choke on them.

Augustine shook his head. “No, he’s busy right now. It isn’t a good time.”

Gabrielle made a disbelieving sound in her throat, and pushed herself to her feet. Augustine felt his heart jump in his chest, as if he had walked face first into a jump scare.

“Gabrielle! No, don’t—don’t do that,” he said, and he put his hand on her leg to force her to pause and look back at him. She did (and the combee Augustine had been bathing turned to look at him in alarm, too), and Augustine took a breath to try and steady his heart as he said, “I’ll—I’ll find the time, but now isn’t it. So please don’t go get him, all right? Why don’t you . . . go play with Sophie or Cosette instead? Cosette went to pick up a new box of poképuffs earlier. I’m sure she got some of the sweet kind you like.”

For once, the mention of sweet poképuffs didn’t immediately derail Gabrielle’s train of thought. She continued to give him a dubious stare, and she looked over in Alan’s direction once more. Thankfully, Alan hadn’t noticed what had occurred between them; he was too distracted by the six baby salandit that were scampering all over him, trying to climb up his chest so they could pounce on Lizardon to get the poképuffs. But though Gabrielle still looked as if she wanted to go get his attention, she turned her eyes back to Augustine instead, nodded once, and then returned to the lab.

Augustine stared after her, flummoxed. As far as he knew, she didn’t even know _what_ he wanted to talk to Alan about. Why did she look so put-out with him?

_Probably,_ said a little intrusive thought in the back of his mind, _because you’re making excuses to avoid talking to your own son._

Augustine shook his head as he looked back down at the combee, and murmured an apology for getting distracted in the middle of bath time. The combee buzzed—a little annoyed, but not overly so—and Augustine resumed massaging the dry shampoo in, trying to focus so that he didn’t miss a single spot.

**\- - -**

Neither Gabrielle nor the intrusive thought had been exactly wrong, a thought that had plagued him for the rest of the day. The morning of the next day—the ninth day—he decided that it was more than high time he mustered up the courage to do something about it.

The first part of their morning followed the same routine as always. When Alan and Lizardon returned from their morning flight they fed the pokémon at the lab, and then sat down to breakfast themselves. Augustine took their dishes into the kitchen and placed them in the sink, and once that was done (and he told himself, in the firmest internal voice that he could manage, that he had to do this, that he _needed_ to do this, that it needed to be done _now_ and there was _no turning back_ ), he said, “Hey, Alan—before we get started today, there’s something we need to talk about.”

Alan was still standing over by the table, having just gotten up from his seat after checking something on his PokéNav Plus while Augustine put their dishes in the sink, but the moment the words  _‘there’s something we need to talk about’_ left Augustine’s mouth, he froze. His eyes were wide, and every muscle in his body looked tense; he was so suddenly still that it looked like he had stopped breathing altogether, and perhaps he had. 

Augustine wanted to kick himself.

“It’s not anything bad,” he said, and Alan relaxed, though only marginally. He was still frowning, his brow knitted together. “Or—it’s not anything you’ve done, exactly. It isn’t anything like that.”

“Okay . . .” Alan said. “Then . . . what is it about?”

Augustine opened his mouth to answer, but just like all the other times, the words felt caught in his chest. It was the kitchen, he thought. The kitchen was not a good place to have this talk, not with the sink and kitchen table standing between them.

“Let’s go out in the garden,” he said. “There’s that place out in the trees where you like to sit—that little secluded spot—isn’t there? Let’s go there.”

Alan nodded, and led the way to the door that led out to the garden. He held it open for Augustine, who stepped through and waited for Alan to follow. When he did, and the door shut behind them ( _no turning back_ ), Augustine stared to lead the way toward the trees in the back of the garden.

For their part, the pokémon out in the garden didn’t seem to notice that anything was up. The marill were playing with the oddish and psyduck, and the baby salandit that Alan had been feeding the day before were clamoring around both Lizardon and Gabrielle, who seemed to be having fun entertaining them. As Augustine and Alan passed their little group, both Lizardon and Gabrielle looked up. Augustine smiled at them and held up one hand, and though Lizardon tilted his head in apparent confusion, Gabrielle waved one claw and gave him a happy smile, reassuring him in their own language. Whatever she said seemed to be enough to pacify Lizardon; he nodded, and went back to playing with the baby salandit.

Most of their walk across the yard and through the trees was made in silence. Augustine didn’t really know what to say; he knew what he _needed_ to say, what it was that they needed to talk about, but he wasn’t sure how to begin. As they walked, he stole a glance over at Alan to see that Alan was staring at the ground, his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. He still looked tense, and once again Augustine felt the urge to kick himself. Whatever his own nerves were, there was no reason to pass that onto Alan. Alan had been doing much better over the past couple of months; he had seemed much less stressed, much happier. The last thing Augustine wanted to do was undo all the progress he had made, much less over something that shouldn’t have been stressful in the first place.

But it was, as much as Augustine didn’t understand why. He had no idea why he felt his own hands shaking a bit as he balled them into fists in his own lab coat, or why part of him felt like fumbling for an excuse to end this conversation before it began. It was a good thing—really, it was. There was nothing bad, or even surprising, about what they needed to talk about. Even if the question of adoption was new, the fact that Alan was his son in all but blood . . . that was a truth Augustine had felt for years now. But he still felt the urge to scrounge for an excuse for why this wasn’t a good time to talk either bubbling in his chest, and he knew that they needed to start talking before that urge became overpowering. And so, in the absence of having anything prepared (and why hadn’t he prepared? He could have written something beforehand, could have used notecards—), Augustine decided to employ the same tried-and-true method that had gotten him through numerous assignments in university.

“It’s, ah . . . it’s been a long time since you’ve come to live here, hasn’t it? Since I brought you home, I mean. All those years ago.”

He was going to wing it.

Alan cast him a furtive glance out of the corner of his eye, not turning to look at Augustine fully, and nodded. His lips were pressed tightly together as he cast his eyes back to the grass beneath their feet, and—seemingly feeling that a nod wasn’t enough—mumbled, “Yeah.”

“Time really flies,” Augustine said. “I still remember—you were so little. I could carry you around on my shoulders so easily.” He laughed awkwardly. “That would . . . probably be impossible now. We might be able to manage a piggyback ride, if the situation called for it, but . . . not so much a shoulder ride.”

“Mm.” 

Augustine wasn’t sure if Alan’s little hum was an agreement or acknowledgement, but they had finally reached the little clearing. Without preamble, Alan headed over toward a large boulder that had sat in the clearing for as long as Augustine could remember, and hopped up onto it. He pulled one knee up to his chest and wrapped his arms around it (his other leg dangling off the rock), and it was only after he did that he started, eyes widening as he looked over at Augustine.

“Sorry,” he said. “Did you want . . . ?”

“No, no. I’m fine just like this,” Augustine said, and he smiled for Alan’s benefit. It was true; it always felt easier to stand when he was nervous. It made him feel more ready to take action, if there was action to take. 

Alan nodded, and rested his chin on his knee as he watched Augustine, waiting. And that, too, was familiar; Augustine liked to stand when he was nervous, but Alan had a tendency to close in on himself. He always had. Even if he was standing, it wasn’t strange for his fists to be clenched, shoulders hunched, or perhaps even arms crossed if he felt uncomfortable. The same was true now, but there was no _reason_ for it, and Augustine knew that. There was no reason, and yet . . . he . . .

“Professor?” Alan said, and Augustine tore his eyes away from the fletchling nest he had been looking at to instead look back at Alan. “What . . . did you want to talk abo—?”

“That,” Augustine said, and it certainly wasn’t the smoothest way to launch into the conversation, but when Alan gave him a confused stare, he elaborated, “You called me ‘Professor’. That’s what I want to talk about. In a sense, anyway.”

Alan looked no less confused, though Augustine saw him hug his knee a little tighter against his chest. “O-Oh . . . um, okay. Is that . . . is something wrong with that?”

_Yes_ was the answer that buzzed in anticipation on the tip of Augustine’s tongue, so suddenly vibrant and powerful that he wasn’t sure how he had never noticed it before, how the thought had never _occurred_ to him before Meyer had brought it up. But he knew, too, that saying so wouldn’t be fair to Alan, who had never been made aware that there _was_ a problem until this very moment. So instead Augustine said, “Not exactly. Alan . . . I brought you home eleven years ago. Twelve years this September. Isn’t that right?”

Alan nodded.

“I brought you home, but . . . I don’t think we’ve ever discussed _why_ I brought you home, or . . . what happened after. Why, and what you’re doing, here.”

“I’m working,” Alan said. “I’m your assistant. That’s what you said. You offered me a job, and I took it.” 

“Well, yes,” Augustine said. “But also no. You were a bit too young to really accept a job as a research assistant, and in all honesty that was more of an excuse for me to get you out of that village. Not that you didn’t help me that day,” he added quickly, “but more that, well, I’m not really the one to look for child labor when I’m in need of more research assistants. I just needed a plausible reason to take you with me, and that was the easiest one on hand.”

“Oh.” Alan didn’t look upset—or at least, not any more upset than he had ever since Augustine had said they needed to talk—but he didn’t look relieved or necessarily pleased, either. “But I’m your assistant now, aren’t I?”

“Not . . . exactly,” Augustine said. “You help me out quite a lot, of course, but I wouldn’t say you’re my assistant in the same way Sophie and Cosette are.”

Alan had looked down at the grass midway through Augustine’s words, and he was silent for a moment before he said quietly, “I don’t understand. Are you . . . firing me?”

“What?” Augustine stared at Alan, aghast, but when Alan didn’t look up, hastily said, “No! No, no, that’s not . . .” He put his face in his hands for only a moment before he combed one hand up through his hair, and huffed a mirthless laugh. “I’m really making a mess of this, aren’t I? I can never find the right words to say for conversations like these.”

Finally Alan looked back up, question in his eyes even though he didn’t speak. Augustine sighed, and paced a few steps closer to the boulder Alan sat on, though he kept some distance between them. He knew Alan liked his space whenever he was upset or nervous.

“Alan, the reason why I’m bringing this up is because you aren’t my assistant in the usual sense. You assist me, yes—we’ve worked on a great deal of research over the years, and there is so much I feel I couldn’t have done had you not helped me with it.”

“That’s not true,” Alan said. “You can do any—”

Augustine held up one finger, and Alan fell silent.

“What I’m trying to say,” Augustine continued, “is not that you don’t help me, or that we don’t research together, because you do— _we_ do. We have quite a number of projects that have both of our names attached to them. You’re every bit the researcher I am, and twice the trainer.”

Alan looked dubious, and Augustine could tell by the look in his eyes and the frown on his lips that he was a half second away from open disagreement. Augustine hurried on before Alan had the chance.

“But even with that said, you still aren’t—our relationship isn’t like what I have with Sophie, or Cosette. Sophie, Cosette, and I are friends, but we’re also colleagues. Our relationship is, first and foremost, professional. But the relationship that you and I have is not like that. Or at least . . . I feel that it isn’t.”

Augustine turned and paced back toward the other side of the little clearing, his hands still in the pocket of his lab coat. 

“When I brought you home all those years ago, I didn’t bring you back as my assistant. Not really. That was the excuse on paper, and you did help me out, but that wasn’t really . . . I’ve never really thought of you as my assistant, or as  _just_ my assistant. As far as I’m concerned, ever since I brought you home . . . I’ve always thought of you as my son.”

Silence. Utter silence, broken only by the distant sounds of pokémon rustling through the tree branches or skirting along the grass elsewhere in the little wooden area, fell over them. Augustine waited for only a minute before he turned back to look at Alan, who was staring at him. Alan’s arms had fallen from around his knee; his hands were limp against the boulder he was sitting on, and he was staring at Augustine with wide eyes.

“Alan?” Augustine said, gently, but also with a bit of trepidation. That Alan was his son was never in question for _him_ , but he wondered—for Alan— “Are you . . . okay?”

Alan blinked once—twice—as if trying to bring Augustine into focus. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. And then, blinking once again as if he was really having difficulty processing what was in front of him, he brought his hands up and scratched roughly across the back of his left hand.

“H-Hey!” Augustine said, alarmed, and he took a step forward, raising his hands to try and stop Alan from doing any more damage. Alan didn’t; he merely stared at the scratches he had made, as if he was trying to discern some kind of answer from them. “Don’t—what are you doing?”

“Checking something,” Alan said, though he sounded distracted. He was still frowning, even as he looked back toward the direction of the lab. “Maybe if Lizardon . . .”

“Alan?” Augustine said, and Alan finally looked back at him. He looked lucid, at least, and didn’t seem upset, per se—but that did little to quell the anxiety Augustine was currently feeling. “Are you—why did you do that? What’s wrong?”

“I needed to see . . .” Alan chewed the inside of his lip and glanced back in the direction of the lab again. Lizardon was probably too far away to hear Alan’s call, and seeming to reach the same conclusion, Alan looked back. “You said . . . could you . . . say that again? I want to make sure I heard you correctly.”

Augustine furrowed his brow. “Which part?”

“What you said before I . . .” Alan rubbed his fingers along the scratches on the back of his hand.

“I said that I’ve always thought of you as my son,” Augustine said, and he was standing close enough now that he could see Alan’s breath hitch, and he squeezed his injured hand. “And it’s true, I have—Alan, are you okay? Is this . . . okay with you?”

Alan swallowed hard, and he nodded, but his breathing didn’t look less shallow. He wrapped his arms around his leg again, and Augustine could tell that he was chewing on his tongue.

Augustine’s heart sank.

“Alan,” he said again, and he made his voice as gentle as possible, “if you’re not okay, it’s . . . it’s all right to say so. I won’t—”

“No, I’m . . . I’m just . . .” Alan shook his head a little. “. . . confused.”

“Confused?” Augustine blinked as Alan nodded. “About what?”

“I . . .” Alan looked back at him for only a moment before he averted his eyes again. “You said . . . just now, you said that you’ve always thought of me as—as your son.”

“That’s right. I have.”

“But . . . when you first brought me here . . . that night, I asked you if—I asked you what I should call you. And you said . . . you said that I should call you ‘Professor.’ Back then, you didn’t want . . .”

It took a great deal of self-restraint for Augustine to stop himself from putting his face in his hands again. He couldn’t believe—after all these years— “Oh no—no, no, no. That’s not what happened.”

Alan looked back at him, his gaze sharp. “Yes it is.”

“No, it’s—it wasn’t like that. I understand that must have been how it seemed, but that wasn’t my intention. I didn’t say that because I was averse to the idea of you calling me your father, even back then.”

Alan said nothing; he merely continued to watch Augustine. Augustine put his hands back into the pockets of his lab coat.

“The reason—and I’m eleven years too late in telling you this, but—the reason why I told you to call me ‘Professor’ that night wasn’t because I was averse to you calling me ‘Dad.’ It was because—do you remember the night we spent in Cyllage City, at the hotel? The first night after I took you with me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember when Fulbert and I went to talk on the balcony, after I put you to bed?”

“Yes. He was upset you had brought me along.”

“In a sense,” Augustine said, and he combed his hand through his hair. Even now, eleven years later, he felt that was still probably one of the worst fights he had ever had with his old college friend. “We ended up reaching an agreement that, when we returned home to Lumiose, we would search for your birth parents. Fulbert thought that perhaps they had lost you in the woods; he felt that if they had, they might have filed a missing child report, and we could find them that way. I thought it best for you to not call me your father just then because I was afraid that if we found your biological parents, you would be hurt or confused about leaving with them after I had already told you that I was going to be your father from then on. I knew you were disappointed . . . but I felt it was best for you at the time, just in case.” He put his hand back in his lab coat pocket, and smiled ruefully. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about how that must have sounded, beyond the obvious. I probably should have told you this years ago, but since neither Fulbert nor myself ever found any information on your biological parents, I never thought to bring it up. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Alan said. He had relaxed a little, though he still looked a little dazed, as if he had been smacked particularly hard in the head or was recovering from a concussion. Augustine cleared his throat, more to force himself to speak than anything.

“But that said, I brought this up today because that can . . .” _It should._ “. . . change, if you want it to.”

Alan met his eyes, and squeezed his arms a little tighter around his leg again, though he said nothing.

“I don’t want to force you into anything, or pressure you,” Augustine said. He could feel his own heartbeat pick up speed in his chest. “I know this is sudden—well.” He huffed a laugh. “Sudden for you—I’ve been trying to muster up the courage to broach this subject for a week now.”

Alan furrowed his brow. “Why? Were you nervous, I mean.”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Augustine said, though he had a fair idea now, and it had everything to do with the state of apparent shell-shock Alan had been in ever since Augustine had said that he thought of Alan as his son, much less the question of actual adoption. Meyer had been right—Alan really hadn’t realized. And Augustine had half a mind to jettison himself to the moon. “But that isn’t important. What I’m trying to say is, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. If you want to continue on as we have been, that’s fine; I’ll love you just the same either way. But if you want . . . I’d like to adopt you. Formally. Officially.”

Once again, Alan was at a loss for words. The tension left him so that his arms fell limply by his sides, and though his mouth had dropped open, no sound came out. After a moment he seemed to collect himself, for he closed his mouth, swallowed, and then croaked, “Are you . . . serious?”

“Yes.”

“. . . Really?”

“Yes,” Augustine repeated. “I promise you, this is not something I would joke about.”

Alan continued to stare at him; his eyes were very bright. “Even after everything I did? After—after everything I did over the past two years, with Lysandre—”

“None of that was your fault,” Augustine said firmly. “But even if it was, my feelings wouldn’t change. I should have adopted you years ago, and in my heart, I already did. Nothing Lysandre did—or could have done—changes how I feel about that.”

Alan looked back down at the grass again. He was trembling a little, and Augustine saw him scrape his nails against the boulder. He had never been one to think aloud, and Augustine could only guess what was going on in his head, but—

“The choice is yours,” Augustine said. “As I said, I consider you to be my son either way. I’ll love you just the same either way. And I would love to adopt you, if you’d be comfortable with tha—”

“ _Yes_.”

“—bu—oh.” Augustine blinked, and as his brain processed what Alan had said, he felt a smile spread his cheeks. “Really?”

“Yes,” Alan repeated, and he was _beaming_ as he looked up, his eyes shining along with his smile. “It’s what I’ve _always_ wanted, ever since that first night back in Cyllage. I never wanted to say, because I didn’t want to pressure you or make you feel bad when I hadn’t . . .” He swallowed thickly, and huffed a small laugh as he blinked a few times to keep the tears in his eyes from spilling over. “But I’ve always wanted this. Always.”

“Oh. Well. That’s settled then, isn’t it?” Augustine said, and he couldn’t help but return Alan’s smile. It was strange—nothing had changed, really, because Alan was his son, and always had been—but for some reason, right in that moment, Augustine felt light enough to bounce, as if the steps he took back to the lab were going to be in zero gravity. “What do you say we head back and start looking into this process, hm? It might take some time, but if we start now we should be able to speed it along.”

Alan nodded. “Yeah.” He took another second to collect himself before he hopped off the boulder. Augustine turned to start back toward the lab, but he hadn’t so much as lifted his foot to take the first step before Alan said, “Hey, um—”

Augustine looked back. “What is it?”

Alan hesitated for a second, but only a second. In the next beat he pushed himself forward to throw his arms around Augustine’s shoulders in a tight embrace. Augustine hugged Alan back just as securely, and smiled as he felt Alan tighten the hug for just a moment before he pulled back.

“Thank you,” Alan said, and his voice shook a little as he said it.

Augustine’s smile didn’t fade, and he squeezed Alan’s shoulder. “I’m only doing what we should have done years ago,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go get started.”

Alan laughed again, the sound soft but elated, and was beaming again as he said, “Yeah. Let’s do it.”


End file.
